Pushkin

Before we get started, let's talk about Pushnik.

Pushnik is a subscription program available exclusively on Apple Podcast subscriptions.

Members will get access to bonus content like extended versions of our Questlove and

Beastie Boys episodes.

You also get uninterrupted ads-free listening to many of your favorite podcasts like Revision

of History, Coshner Rattles, and The Happiness Lab.

You can try it for free for seven days, sign up for Pushnik and Apple Podcast subscriptions.

Archie Shep has been a leader in what's known as Avant Garde Jazz since the 1960s.

He famously played tenor sax alongside John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, and the great free

jazz pianist Cecil Taylor.

But like some musicians who are considered jazz artists, 84-year-old Shep doesn't consider

the music he plays jazz at all.

He calls it African American music to acknowledge the black Americans who created the tradition.

Shep has been politically engaged for his entire 60-year career.

Every one of his dozens of albums touches on African American struggle to attain equal

rights in some fashion.

One of my favorite albums, for instance, Attica Blues, takes a critical look at the Attica

Prison Rights of 1971.

On today's episode, I talked to Archie Shep about how an assignment he received in the

third grade sparked his activism.

Shep also talks about his relationship with Coltrane, who he says never took his horn out

...